Managing Your Electronic Briefcase
E-mail: Getting Out from Under the Pile

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This page on managing e-mail focuses on use of Eudora or other similar e-mail software. For information on ANGEL mail, go to ANGEL Help documentation at http://cms.psu.edu

Definitions

Nickname - an alias for one or more e-mail addresses. For example, a person's name can be typed in the "To" field instead of typing in an e-mail address (e.g., csmith instead of xyz123@psu.edu).

Mailbox - in your e-mail software (such as Eudora), you have an "In" Box (or equivalent) into which your incoming mail is placed. In Eudora, you also have "Out" Box, Trash, Junk, and can create other mailboxes and folders into which to place mail.

Filtering - a process by which you have incoming mail automatically go to mailboxes that you've created instead of all going to the In Box.

Stationery - a standard note that you create, save, and send numerous times with or without edits. You don't have to type the content of the note each time or find an old version among your outgoing e-mail.

Why Should I Know This?

With the volume of mail we get and the number of people with whom we correspond, we need to have ways to streamline our work.

ANGEL for organizing course mail

You can use Penn State's Course Management System ANGEL for course mail since course enrollees' names and access IDs are available automatically. ANGEL mail can be sorted into folders and can include attachments. You can see all correspondence to and from any student you select. You can mail to any subset of your students, including student teams. You can send a copy of the mail that you write to accounts outside of ANGEL (e.g., Penn State access account). However, you cannot send e-mail from an outside account into ANGEL.

You can require that all the students in your course use ANGEL for any communication related to the course. Doing this keeps all correspondence for a particular course in one place. However, you will have to log into the course to check what students have sent to you or to their classmates. You should, of course, allow students to use regular e-mail for emergencies.

Shortcuts to addressing mail

1. Use nicknames (discussed below).
2. Use nicknames for groups of IDs or names (discussed below)
3. Use just the Penn State access ID without @psu.edu. To do this, under Special, Settings (or Tools, Options on Windows), Sending mail, in the field "domain to add to unqualified mail," type psu.edu. This will make your mail add @psu.edu if you only type a Penn State Access ID (that is, mail to xyz123 will go to xyz123@psu.edu).

Nicknames

Nickname "schemes"

1. Individualized, varied
2. By first name (be cautious since you may correspond with more than one person with the same first name)
3. By last name
4. By full name
5. By initial and first or last name
6. By e-mail address (e.g., Penn State Access ID which is unique)
7. Easily remembered acronym (e.g, helpdesk, virusreport)

Creating a Nickname while mail from the person is open

While you are viewing a note in Eudora, you can easily create a nickname for the person or group.

1. Under menu bar, Special, select "Make address book entry" or type Command-K.
2. Type a name for the person or use the suggested name.
3. The person's e-mail address is automatically recorded.
4. Tip: Be cautious that you don't create a nickname when mail from a listserv (mailing list) is open unless that's really what you want to do.

Creating a series of nicknames

To create a lot of nicknames at one time:

1. From the menu bar, select Windows, Address Book.
2. Click on "New" or click on the icon for new.
3. Type nickname; type address.
4. Repeat steps 2 and 3 for each name.
5. When finished, save your Address Book.

Creating yourself as one of your nicknames

Sometimes you may wish to send yourself a reminder or carbon or blind carbon yourself on a note. Make "self" or "me" a nickname.

1. From the menu bar, select Windows, Address Book.
2. Click on "New" or the icon for new.
3. Type a nickname; type your e-mail address.
4. When finished, save your Address Book.

Creating a Nickname for a group of people

1. From the menu bar, select Window, Address Book.
2. Click on "New" or the icon for new.
3. Type a nickname for the group.
4. In the address field, place a list of nicknames (or e-mail addresses or combination of valid addresses or existing nicknames), separated by a comma or one per line.
5. When finished, save your Address Book.

Grabbing a bunch of e-mail IDs from an e-mail note

If you are in a note that has multiple e-mail addresses for a group to which you will need to send a note later, you can copy the addresses and paste them into your address book.

1. Copy the e-mail addresses from the note.
2. Open your Address Book (select Window, Address Book).
3. Click on New.
4. Type a nickname for the group.
5. Paste the list you copied from the e-mail since they are already separated by commas.

Setting up mailboxes and mail folders

To create separate mailboxes for use in sorting mail:

1. From the menu bar, select Mailbox, New.
2. Name the mailbox.
3. To individually place messages in any mailbox, from the menu bar, select Transfer. Then from the pull-down listing, select the mailbox to which you want to transfer the mail. (Note: You can transfer many e-mail at one time by selecting (highighting) them prior to transfer.

To set up folders (folders that can contain multiple mailboxes):

A folder in Eudora can hold multiple mailboxes. For example, you can create a folder for a specific course or project. In that folder, you may have mailboxes for different assignments, different discussions, questions you've answered, etc.

1. From the menu bar, select Mailbox, New.
2. Name the mailbox but click on "Make it a folder."
3. Then you can add as many mailboxes to the folder as you wish by using the Window menu, selecting "Mailboxes" and clicking on appropriate icons as described above.

Filtering mail

Filtering is a way to have mail go into separate mailboxes automatically. You can filter incoming (most common) or outgoing mail, manually filter or do any combination. For example, you can filter mail coming from a listserv or mail coming from students in a specific course. Then you can review the homework in the mailbox when you are ready. (See Course E-mail Tips and Strategies for help with course correspondence policies.) Policies for students are also available.

To filter incoming mail, you must

1. Determine what you want Eudora to look for (criteria on which to filter) in incoming mail (e.g., mail with certain words in the subject line or from a specific e-mail address(es)).
2. Determine what action to take (e.g., put into a mailbox).

In Eudora to set up filters:

1. In the Window menu, select Filters.
2. Select the New button.
3. Select Incoming (unless you have a special reason to filter Outgoing).
4. Select the Header item on which you'll filter and type in the contents (e.g., "biology research" assuming that you have told your students or colleagues that their e-mail should have this subject).
5. Select the action to take on mail that meets this criteria.
6. Save the filter.

You can also set up a filter while an example of the type of mail you want to filter is open. This will automatically, for example, set the exact "subject" or person who sent the mail, if you wish

Sorting mail

You can sort mail in several ways.

1. When any mailbox is open, you can sort on any header (e.g., who, subject, date) by clicking on the column header.
2. Similarly, you can sort by using the Edit menu, then selecting "Sort" where you will see a list of the ways you can sort the mail in a mailbox.
3. Using filters, you can automatically sort mail into mailboxes (see above to create mailboxes).
4. You can manually transfer one or more e-mail to a mailbox. Highlight it (or several) and use the Transfer menu.

Tip: After your mail is sorted, for example by name, you can type the first couple letters of the name to jump to the mail that person sent.

Short way to address mail using only the Access ID

If you have a lot of mail to send and you have a large number of Penn State Access IDs, you can type only the Access IDs (separated by commas) in the "To" if you

1. Under Special, Settings (or Tools, Options on Windows), Sending mail, in the field "domain to add to unqualified mail," type psu.edu.
2. This will make your mail add @psu.edu when you just type only an ID such as xyz123.

Stationery

To create and use e-mail "stationery,"

1. Write a new e-mail message with a message you send often (e.g., the answer to a commonly asked question).
2. From the menu bar, File, Save as ... stationery. Give the stationery a name.
3. Put into the stationery folder (Macintosh).
4. To use the stationery, from the menu bar, select Message, then select "New message with" and choose the stationery.

To make a link be "active" in e-mail you send

You can help receivers of links you send if you:

1. Always include the "http://". That is, don't send just www.psu.edu.
2. Put a < before the e-mail and > after the link. The < > keeps the mail from adding a line break which may make very long links invalid.

E-mail at home and at work

Leave mail "on server" from home computer so that if you read mail at home, it still comes to your office. Directions for Eudora follow.

1. Open Eudora at home.
2. Go to the Tools menu and select Options (or Special, Settings on Mac).
3. Under "Checking Mail," put an x in front of "Leave mail on server."

Accessing mail when away from home and office

1. You can forward e-mail to another account.
2. Or you can use a service provider at another location.
3. BEST SOLUTION: Use WebMail from anywhere in the world: http://webmail.psu.edu/

Resources

Good tutorials

From Eudora publishers, excellent: http://www.eudora.com/techsupport/tutorials/

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